Fun and Games
by tilante
Summary: It's time for the family wizard competition... and how many other things can happen at the same time?  Part of the "Alex Gets Punished" continuity.  Rated M for consistency with the other stories; actual content is T.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is the latest story in the series that begins with _Alex Gets Punished. _See my author page for the full series. If you want to jump in here, though, these are the things to know:

- Alex and Justin have had an established sexual relationship for about five years. She's 20, he's 22. Max is 18.

- Alex created a duplicate that became permanent, who now lives with their mom and dad, freeing Alex to live with Justin. Those who know she's a duplicate call her Lexie.

* * *

"We are not changing this now!"

Lexie's voice was loud and insistent, coming through Alex's phone, and she kept talking even as Alex protested, "He's _my_ little brother! I want to get to see him graduate!"

"The whole switch-off thing was _your_ idea! You'd go to Justin's graduation, and I'd go to Max's! And they're _my _brothers too, you know! You can't _always_ have things your way, just because you're the original!"

"But Justin's going to go to graduate school, so he'll be doing it again! And you have the same memories of _his_ high school graduation that I do! Max may never graduate anything again!" Alex gestured as she talked into the phone, which wasn't something she normally did, but she was feeling _really _worked up over this. "And besides, you'll get to go to my graduation, but I can't go to yours!"

"Max not graduate again? You haven't even been spending time with him, have you? If you had, you'd know that he's not the dumb kid he was when I - you - when _we_ were sixteen! He's grown a lot in the last four years!"

"Well, duh, I know he's grown! He's taller than me now!" Alex stopped on the corner, ignoring the stares people were giving her as she continued to argue on the phone. "And, you know, the fact that _I_ haven't been able to spend as much time with him as _you_ have is _another_ reason why I should be the one who goes to his graduation!"

"You know something? There's no reasoning with you," Lexie shot back. "God! No wonder Mom can't talk to me for more than five minutes!"

"Yeah, well at least you _can_ talk to Mom about things! I - Oh, you did _not_ just hang up on me!" Alex pulled the phone from her ear, stared for a moment at the "Call Ended" on it, hit the "Redial" button.

She held the phone to her ear, growled again when she got voice mail, hung up, then angrily stuffed the phone into her purse. _I do not need this. Not on top of the projects I have due, and Justin wanting us to move, _and_ the damn wizard competition._ Alex almost laughed at that - four years ago, the wizard competition had seemed like the most important thing that was ever going to happen... and now it wasn't even at the top of her list. _And it's... oh hell, it's tomorrow!_ She blinked as she suddenly teared up, wondering how the week had gone by so quickly - here it was Friday, and it seemed like Monday had just been yesterday.

_Okay, screw it. It's time to depressurize a bit. And I know just who to call for that..._

An hour later, Alex was sitting cross-legged on a cushion in Miranda's apartment, holding a hot cup of chamomile tea in both hands and slowly drinking it. Miranda had just sat down on another, on the other side of the low table from Alex, and picked up her own cup, drank from it as well.

"So," the older girl said, "you've been feeling really emotional the last week or two? And you've been feeling tired and queasy?"

"Yeah," Alex said, shaking her head. "I've just been so stressed out with everything - planning the move, and finishing up the semester... and the usual family stuff, only more, with Max and Justin both graduating." She ignored the familiar twinge of guilt at not being able to tell Miranda what was really going on there, and once again thanked whoever might be in charge of these things that her brother's ex-girlfriend had turned into such a good friend.

"A couple more weeks, though, and everything ought to be back to normal... well, except for the fact that we'll across the country," Alex continued, rolling her eyes. "I just have to get through it all."

"Alex, sweetie... I think there might be more to it than you're thinking." Miranda bit her lip, and Alex felt a swell of annoyance.

"Yeah? Like what?"

"When was the last time you had a period?"

Alex frowned, thinking, said, "Six weeks ago. I think all the stress made me miss this last one, and -" She stopped, looking at Miranda's understanding expression that held the faintest hint of amusement, then said, "No. Oh no. I can't be -"

"I think you might be. But if you want to know... I've got a test left over from when I thought I might be."

Setting down her cup, Alex held up both hands and said, "No. I am _not_ pregnant. No way."

Miranda sighed a little and rolled her eyes just a little. "Alex - you're a healthy twenty-year-old woman, and Justin's a healthy twenty-two-year-old man. And birth control _does_ fail. If you're far enough along for it to affect you, though, then the test should tell. It'll only take a few minutes."

Fifteen minutes later, after hemming, hawing, and a bit of arguing, Alex and Miranda were both waiting, Miranda sitting while Alex paced. "Has it been three minutes?" Alex asked, looking over toward where they'd left the test, sitting on the counter. That'd been Miranda's idea, that they sit down and wait instead of standing there staring at it, but she was starting to regret it.

_It's just her hormones making her irritable. _Miranda smiled a little, thought, _Wow. Never thought I'd hear that excuse from myself. _"Not yet. Another thirty seconds," she said aloud. "Sit down. Try to relax. I'll tell you when it's -"

She broke off and sighed as Alex headed over to the counter, picked up the test, stood and stared at it. Then Miranda got to her feet and moved behind Alex, put her hand on the other girl's shoulder as they both watched. Alex took in a deep breath as the clock symbol on the test's display disappeared - and then was replaced by YES+.

"Oh… oh my god," Alex said, blinking quickly. "I'm pregnant. I'm…." She stopped, turned, and hugged Miranda hard. "I'm going to have a baby!" Miranda hugged Alex back, started to speak, but before she could get anything out, Alex was going on, saying, "Oh… oh no, I have to tell Justin. He's going to freak. He…."

"Hey…" Miranda gave Alex a squeeze, said, "Justin's a good guy. He'll take it okay."

"No - Justin likes things organized, and babies aren't organized. And he hates surprises. He won't be mad, but… he'll be upset. And he doesn't need that right now." She stopped, sighed, said, "I know I'll have to tell him soon. But it needs to wait a few days."


	2. Chapter 2

Max Russo stood in front of his mirror, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly as he looked at himself in the green-and-black wizard competition outfit. _Nice fit_, he thought, as he turned a little to the side to look at it from another angle. Behind him, the mirror reflected a room filled with the usual clutter of a teenage boy: clothes on the floor, an unmade bed, several open books lying about, a couple of almost-empty cups on his nightstand.

Still, it was a far cry from how he'd kept it a few years ago, when there had been layers of trash and dirty clothes that could have kept a team of archaeologists busy for weeks. Of course, they would have probably wanted hazmat suits, given what _else_ was in those layers. Part of the change was simply due to growing up - but a larger part was because he'd discovered girls along the way. And in particular...

She flashed in suddenly, moved up behind Max and hugged him, smiled at him in the mirror as she stretched up to kiss him on the cheek - and she had to stretch quite a bit, as Max had shot up to where he was taller even than Justin. Max, however, was in the mood for more than a cheek kiss, and turned as the beautiful honey blonde stretched, so that her kiss landed on his mouth instead.

The girl giggled into the kiss, then broke it and smiled at him, looked into his brown eyes with her blue. "So," she said then, "are you ready to win this?"

He nodded slowly in return, said, "Yeah. I think Alex and Justin are going to be really, really surprised at what I can do."

"I _know_ they will be," the girl said, smiling again and stretching up to give him another brief kiss. "You're amazing, Max. You deserve to be your family's wizard. And once you are, then we can really be together."

Max lifted a hand to brush back the girl's hair, moved to kiss her on one delicately-pointed ear as he breathed out, "I know. And I'm going to win this so we can. I love you, Tutor."

* * *

"All right," Justin said, pushing his fingers back through his hair nervously. "I guess we're as ready as we can be. I'm supposed to meet you guys there - Dad gave me the key to teleport to the arena last weekend. He'll be expecting to go with you and Max, so you'll need to go home and switch places with Lexie. And then we do it." He paused, gave Alex a weak smile, reached and took her hand. "Remember, we have to try to win, or the magic will know and it won't work. So... sorry in advance for anything -"

"Right, right," Alex answered him, smiling. "Don't worry about it. We both know I'm better than you anyway." She flashed him a grin, elbowed him in the side as she pulled out her wand. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. But I won't." The grin dropped then as a wave of nausea hit her. _Oh... spicy chicken wrap for breakfast was _not_ a good idea._

Justin frowned at Alex, as her eyes widened and she brought a hand up to her mouth - and then dashed into the bathroom. A second later, she was throwing up noisily, and Justin ran in behind her, put a hand on her shoulder. "Alex? Are you sick?"

The only answer was a retching sound, and Justin rolled his eyes at himself, said, "Okay, dumb question. I'll call Dad, tell him you're sick and we're going to have to postpone."

He didn't move to do that, though, instead grabbing a large plastic tumbler from the medicine cabinet, filling it with water for Alex, getting a towel for her as well. She took the tumbler and rinsed her mouth gratefully, started to fill it again. As she did, she felt Justin trying to put the thermometer to her ear, then pulled away from it. "I'm not sick!" she protested, then shut her eyes. _Oh hell. Why did I say that?_

"Alex... you just threw up. We both ate the same dinner last night and breakfast this morning, so it's not food poisoning. So you must be getting stomach flu, or something like that. And it won't be fair at all to expect you to do the competition like that..." He tried to get to her with the thermometer again, but Alex pushed him back, then sighed and moved to him, hugged him.

"Sorry. I'm just really nervous. Butterflies in my stomach, you know? I'll be okay." Justin wrapped his arms around her, and Alex breathed out and closed her eyes, relaxed into the warmth and comfort of him. "I just want to get it over with, okay? I don't even care who wins any more, you know that? If I could, I'd skip the whole thing!" She blinked her eyes several times, fighting back the tears she was feeling.

Justin sighed a little. "It doesn't work like that," he said gently. "You have to be there, and you have to really try. So we need you to be healthy." He looked at her for a moment, then turned to leave the bathroom as he said, "I'll call Dad. I'll make up -"

Then suddenly, Alex was crying, and she grabbed him by the wrist before he could go, said, "No... please, just stay here with me. I need you."

Immediately, Justin moved back to his sister, wrapped his arms around her gently. "I'm right here. I love you, Alex. Don't cry... it's okay. It's not going to hurt anything for the competition to move back a week. Okay?"

_Oh hell, _ Alex thought. _Yeah, that'd be a great help. I can be _seven_ weeks pregnant for it instead of six_. Aloud, she said, "No! I want it done! We need to do it today!"

She practically shouted it, with her mouth only a foot from Justin's ear _and_ in the tiny space of the bathroom, making him cringe at the volume. "Alex," he said, trying to be soothing, starting to stroke her hair. "It's okay. Just try to relax. Nothing's going to change. Whichever of us wins, we'll give our powers to Max... or to Lexie, and then -"

"Wait," Alex said, pushing away from him again. "What? Give up our powers? Why?"

"Alex - you know wizards can't marry mortals -"

"Yeah, but no one knows we're married. And they can't know anyway, so it won't matter."

Justin raised a hand to his face, shook his head. "No - that's not the way it works. It's not just marriage. Didn't you ever wonder why Uncle Kelbo doesn't visit more? Or why when he does visit, he spends time with _us_, not with dad - his _brother_?"

Alex frowned silently at Justin, not answering, and he pressed on. "How old is Professor Crumbs, Alex?"

She blinked at the question. "What? Like... seven hundred? Something like that?"

"Eight hundred and fifty-six. Wizards call ordinary humans _mortals_ for a reason."

Sighing, Alex rolled her eyes and shook her hands, one still holding her wand. "Okay, yeah, I get that. They can live a really long time. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Wizards aren't allowed to keep up long-term relationships with mortals. That's why -"

Alex cut him off, saying. "Listen to this: _I. Don't. Care._ The stupid wizard council can stuff their rules up their asses! We'll find a way to get around them! We -"

"Alex, we can't keep it up forever! They'll find out, sooner or later - they've got ways of monitoring wizards that are just crazy." Justin folded his arms, giving Alex the 'I'm not budging' look she knew well. "If I win, I'm giving my powers to Max."

"Dammit, Justin! This isn't just your life! It's mine too, and it's our baby's!"

Justin blinked at that, and Alex did as well, a moment of silence ticking by as she realized she'd said that out loud. Then she turned away from Justin and leaned against the bathroom wall, putting her forehead against it, flattening her right hand by it, her wand between it and the wall. "I'm pregnant. I just found out yesterday."

"You're pregnant?" he echoed. "Are you sure?"

Grimacing, she nodded. "I took a pregnancy test yesterday. And I missed my period." Tears welled up again, and she choked out an "I'm sorry," that was more sob than speech - and then Justin moved to Alex, put his arms around her, gently pulling her away from the wall and against himself.

"Alex, no. Don't be sorry. I love you." He kissed her forehead, then started to kiss under her eyes, kissing her tears and taking them away. "This... oh my god, we're going to have a baby. I love you!" he said again, shifting his arms to hold Alex so they were cheek-to-cheek.

"You're not mad at me?" Alex asked, her voice small, and Justin ran his fingers through Alex's hair, looked at her with a silly smile that made her smile too.

"Of course I'm not mad at you. It's not your fault - well, if it is, it's my fault too. It's not like you did that all by yourself." He took a deep breath, let it out. "And... I am kind of freaking on the inside, because I have no idea how we're going to pay for this. But I love you, and I'm going to love our baby." He looked down to Alex's belly then, put his hand on it, said, "Hi there," and then had to stop as tears started to come up.

"We have a baby," he said, his voice just above a whisper, and then he frowned, and Alex frowned too, seeing his expression. "What is it?"

"It's..." Justin stopped, shook his head, took a deep breath, then looked Alex in the eyes. "What you said before, about this not being just us now... you're right." He paused, took a deep breath. "We have to tell mom and dad."

"What?" Alex pulled away from him, shaking her head wildly. "No! No way!"

He reached for her, but she extended her arms between them to keep him back, wand still in hand. "No!" she repeated. "They'll blame me! You're their perfect son," she said, shaking her head, crying again now. "They'll say I'm screwing up your life. They'll say it's all my fault, and -"

"I won't let them do that," Justin said. "And you know they love you... yes, they're going to be mad at first, but..." He shook his head, reached for Alex again, trying to smile and make a joke of it. "You know me and my overgrown conscience. I can't keep from them that they're having a grandchild."

"_Ohhh..._" Alex stamped her foot, then yelled out, "_I wish you didn't have that overgrown conscience!_" - and a wave of magic went out with it.

_Oh. Oh_ shit_. What have I just managed to do?_


	3. Chapter 3

_Okay,_ Alex thought. _Let's see how bad the damage is._ "Justin... are you feeling okay?"

He blinked at her, then nodded slowly. "Yeah. Why are you asking me, though? You're the one who's pregnant here."

_Maybe it didn't take,_ Alex thought with a surge of relief._ Maybe that was just my imagination._ Suddenly feeling guilty about her wish, Alex said, "Okay, well..." She sighed, closing her eyes and shaking her head as she said, "Probably we should tell them. Like -"

"Tell them?" Justin frowned deeply at Alex. "No. We're not going to tell them. It'd only make trouble for us."

"Wait -" Alex started, then stopped immediately looking at Justin. He looked serious, not joking, and... _Well, hey. Looks like I get my way. Good. Maybe it actually worked right. I mean, it has to eventually. Right?_

"Good," she said then, and smiled at her brother. "So, I guess that just leaves the competition." Alex took a deep breath, then let it out. "Look... if you want to give the power to Max, then -"

"What?" Justin shook his head quickly, blinking as he did. "What would I want to do a crazy thing like that for?" He shook his head again, giving Alex an annoyed look as he said, "Think about it, Alex. How would we hide your pregnancy without magic? And besides, I'm _not_ giving up all this power, after all the work I've done for it. You _know _that."

"Well, good," Alex replied, grinning. She moved forward and gave Justin a quick kiss on the cheek, then said, "_If_ you win," and pulled back quickly, grinning - but he caught her by the arm, gave her a hard look she'd rarely seen from Justin.

"Alex - don't think you can beat me. We both know you can't. I _am_ winning this. One way or another." He kept his hand on her arm, and Alex frowned. _What the heck?_ She opened her mouth to speak, but Justin shook his head and cut her off. "It's time to do this. Get Dad and Max."

... and then she was in the Lair, blinking in surprise. _Did Justin just _send_ me here? How the heck did he do that?_ Her dad Jerry was there already, pacing impatiently, while Max was sitting on the couch, playing with his Nintendo DS while he waited. "There you are," Jerry said, smiling. "I was going to go to your room and get you in a minute. We need to get going. Chancellor Tootietootie's a busy man. He's not going to wait for us all day."

"Tootietootie?" Alex frowned at that. "I thought Professor Crumbs was going to be doing it?"

Jerry rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh. "Alex... you know Professor Crumbs can't." _Oh, great, _Alex thought. _Must be some change that he told Lexie about, and she didn't tell me since she was busy hanging up on me instead. Well, I'll just have to play along._

"Oh, right. Sorry. Well... let's get going, then. Come on, Max." She swatted her younger brother on the shoulder playfully, and he blinked at her, then got up off the chair.

"Already?" he said, closing the DS and putting it on the table, then walking around the couch to stand by Alex. _Wow. I'm still not used to him being taller than me. _Their father came over as well, and Alex frowned.

"Isn't Mom coming?" she asked, and Jerry shook his head with a little grimace.

"No - she said she doesn't want to watch her children fight over, quote 'something this stupid.' But I'm under orders to bring all three of you back home after, so we can have dinner together, whoever wins."

Alex smiled a little at that. _That's Mom, all right. More worried about family than anything else. _A pang of guilt immediately followed that thought, but Alex was used to suppressing those. Aloud, she said, "Okay then. Next stop, the wizard arena."

When they arrived, Justin was already there, talking to Chancellor Tootietootie under the green sky that Alex remembered so well. The arena was as she remembered it as well, a broad grassy field ringed by high stone walls, flags placed along them at intervals, and "You've really never been to Volcano Land?" Justin was saying. "It's a great place. I've been there three times now. Loved it every time."

_What? We've never been to Volcano Land... weird._ Alex shrugged it off, though - she couldn't exactly ask Justin about it right here and now. "Hey, Dork," she said instead, as if she hadn't spent the morning with him. "Ready to lose?"

Justin gave her a look back, said, "I'm sure you are," while Max watched the two of them, fighting down a grin as he thought, _This is going to be so easy. They're both so focused on each other, they'll just ignore me. _ He made a sour face then. _Just like always._

Chancellor Tootietootie gave the three new arrivals a nod. "Jerry, Alex, Max. Good to see you. As you know, I'm going to be referee for this. So, let's review the rules."

He waved his wand in the air, and a floating blackboard appeared there. As he spoke the rules, the words appeared there as well. "First: A ball of wizard power will be placed in the center of the arena. When one of you touches it, you will absorb it, and become the family wizard. The other two will lose their power." He paused a moment, looking at the three of them. They all nodded, and he nodded in return.

"Second: You may only use spells of elemental magic. No other magic will be permitted." They nodded easily to that, Justin and Alex remembering it well from when they'd done the competition before. Max already knew it as well - Jerry had felt it would be unfair for him not to have that knowledge to help him prepare, when the other two did.

"Third: No outside interference is allowed. For the duration of the competition, the arena will be surrounded by magical walls that will prevent any spell, person, or object from entering or leaving."

"Fourth: The competition must be honest and fair. No collusion will be tolerated. Each of you must make an honest effort to win the magic."

"Fifth and last: You may use your wands, but no other magical devices, and you may not use enhancement spells." He gestured to the side with his wand, and something like an airport walk-through metal detector appeared. "Please walk through here," he said, moving to the control station.

They all three made for it at once. Max, being the closest, got there first. Alex elbowed Justin a little - _Hey, gotta treat him like Lexie does _- and went through second. Justin came last, and the detector went off, blaring out a screeching alarm that made Alex grit her teeth, flashing a red light along with it.

Tootietootie frowned, and Justin reddened with embarrassment. "Uhh... just a second..." He dug in his pocket and quickly handed something small to Tootietootie. Alex grinned as she recognized the magic mini-handcuffs they sometimes used for fun. _Guess he must've forgotten he had those on him. Or been planning something for later._ She dropped the grin before anyone looked at her, did her best to put on a neutral face.

Justin walked through again, and this time, no alarms went off. "All right," Tootietootie said. "Are you all ready?" Two yeses and a yep answered, and the Chancellor nodded. "In a few moments, I'm going to teleport you all to your starting places. Then I'll count down and give you the word to go. This is your last chance for any questions."

The three siblings looked at each other, all their faces serious. Alex swallowed, her mouth feeling very dry, then said, "Good luck" to her brothers.

"Yeah," Max echoed immediately. Justin said nothing, and Alex bit her lip and frowned just a little, wondering what was going on inside his head - but then Tootietootie teleported them to their places, and he was on the opposite side of the arena from her, far enough away that only the blue of his competition uniform let her know it was him and not Max.

Standing above them on the walls, Tootietootie conjured what looked like ball lightning, a sphere of white light with thin streamers radiating from it. He cast it forward from his hands, and it slowly sailed through the arena as the three siblings watched, landed on a stone platform almost like an altar at the center. Alex tensed and crouched down a little, getting ready to run as Tootietootie's magically-enhanced voice rang through the arena. "Three... two... one... GO!"


	4. Chapter 4

Alex immediately broke into a run, heading straight for the altar-like stone where the fiery white ball of magic was. Off to her left, she could see Max doing the same. Justin, however, didn't move from his spot at all, instead crouching down and extending his arms to each side, closing his eyes in concentration as he did. Alex whipped her wand up and started a spray of water at him, hoping to break his concentration.

Her spray was blocked, however, as walls of stone rose up throughout the arena, growing quickly upward. They moved as they rose, like submarines coming up through the water, turning the arena into constantly shifting maze - except in the area between Justin and the magic.

_What the - how'd he _do_ that?_ Alex thought, blinking. She turned to her left, in the direction the wall in front of her was moving away from, then had to dive to the side as she rounded the end of it only to find another coming straight at her.

Watching from the arena walls, their father goggled in astonishment. "He - how - what - " He stopped then, shook his head quickly, then looked to Tootietootie. "He shouldn't be able to do that - not that quickly. Not with a student wizard's powers."

Tootietootie was frowning, tapping his hand with his wand. "I don't know… Justin's very gifted… but in any case, I can't interfere," he said then, looking to Jerry. "Not unless one of them breaks the rules."

Justin had begun running now, straight toward the stone and the magic, pacing himself at an easy, long-strided lope. Like Alex, Max was having to navigate the moving stones - but he stopped, waved his wand. "_Air, air, bear me up to over there!_" he called out, and a howling wind sprung up, lifting him into the air and carrying him over the stones.

As she ran, Alex caught sight of Justin and immediately fired off the mud-slick spell that had served her so well the last time, grinning. Justin slipped in it and fell, then looked toward Alex with an angry expression. As he stood, he jabbed his wand at the ground in front of her, blasting a pit out of it. It was far enough from her that Alex was able to stop in time to keep from falling in, but she frowned deeply.

_What the hell? _ This didn't seem like Justin at all - sure, he'd want to win, but the Justin she knew would never risk hurting her like that. And especially with her being pregnant...

Alex kept running even as she thought, going around the pit and making another mud slick in front of Justin. He leapt to the side this time, barely avoiding it, then turned and fired off another bolt toward her, his teeth bared. This time, it was a bolt of fire, and Alex jumped in surprise, then replied with a spray of water at fire-hose levels, knocking Justin from his feet and soaking the ground around him.

She grinned then, watching him sputter and shake off the water, but her grin dropped as she saw the furious expression on his face, one far beyond anything she'd ever seen on Justin. He cocked his wand back, readying a spell and Alex tensed - and then they both turned at the sound of Max's voice.

"Ha!" he called out, landing by the stone where the magic was. "I knew you two'd be too busy with each other to stop me!" Max started to reach toward the magic, and as he did, Alex fired off a blast of water quickly.

_Dammit, I can't let him win - I have to have the magic to fix whatever I've done to Justin!_ She'd fired too quickly, though, and her spray missed Max. Alex's eyes grew wide as his hand approached the magic - and then she cried out in horror as Justin called out "_Nex ex Terra!_" and a dozen stone spikes shot up from the ground. Four of them passed through Max, impaling his chest in two places, his left leg - and the fourth passing through his neck and into his head, releasing a torrent of blood onto the grass of the arena.

"MAX!" Alex called out, and she heard her father's voice crying out as well as both of them stared.

Jerry whirled to face Tootietootie, grabbed the smaller man by both shoulders. "You've got to stop them! Justin has to be under some kind of spell! My son would never do that!"

"Jerry..." Tootietootie shook his head, his own expression pained, "I _can't_. You know how this works. You know it happens sometimes -"

"_Not to my family!_" Jerry yelled, turning and shoving Tootietootie against a wall. "Something's wrong here!"

Down below, Alex had stopped moving, feeling sick with shock as she looked at the dead body of her younger brother. Then motion caught her eye - Justin, running again toward the magic. "_No!_" she called out, taking off after him. _I can't let him win! If I do, he'll be like this _forever!


	5. Chapter 5

Alex fired off a series of mud slicks, overlapping them in Justin's path so he'd have to go around them. He was too far ahead - a good fifty feet or more closer than she was, and she had to fight down panic as he took off into the air as Max had before, sailing over the mud in a graceful arc.

"_Justin can't be allowed to win, a tornado should make him spin!_" The spell worked, and Justin was seized by the whirlwind Alex had called, was lifted into the air and moved quickly away from the magic. Before, she would have grinned at least, possibly even taunted Justin - but now there was no time for that, and no room in her panicked thoughts for any sort of joy.

Instead, she ducked her head down and ran for the stone for all she was worth, focusing on the magic, trying not to see Max's dead body next to it, still impaled on the spikes Justin had called forth. _He won't do that to me? Will he? To his own _child_?_

She didn't know, and that frightened her more than anything. A Justin who could kill Max - hell, who could kill _anybody_ that wasn't directly threatening him or someone he loved - that wasn't her Justin. It wasn't anyone even remotely _like_ her Justin.

So as she ran, Alex zigged and zagged, using the moving walls of stone Justin had created to make herself a harder target. She wasn't sure that would be enough, though - so she called up a thick, heavy fog as well. _Hard to hit what you can't see._ Of course, it made it hard for her to see as well, but she'd always had a good sense of direction, and she seemed to _feel_ it somehow as well, like a strand tied to her belly button, gently tugging... there! She saw the glow of it through the fog and headed directly for it, running as fast as she could.

But not fast enough. _Justin must feel the tug too... so of course he'd just head for it as fast as he could too! Dammit!_ He landed next to the stone, but Alex shot him with the fire-hose spurt, as she'd tried to do with Max, but this time, her aim was true. It knocked Justin from his feet, and she kept it going, keeping it on him even as she ran.

Fifteen feet, ten, five - and then her hand was in the glowing ball, and she felt the heat of it suffuse her body as it had years before. _I won! I won!_ She turned toward Justin, smiling now in anticipation of being able to set everything to rights - but a blast of water knocked her down, then, and Alex looked up in surprise as Justin snarled at her, his wand out.

"You treacherous little _bitch!_ You may have won, but you're not going to get to keep it!" He waved his wand again and a dozen balls of fire shot from it, separating in mid-flight to land all around Alex, encircling her in a ring of fire with flames that rose a good dozen feet in the air.

Alex aimed her wand to her left and shot out another spray of water, ran out where it had cancelled the fire. Behind her, she heard Justin laugh, and then she flinched back as another wall of fire arose, this one only feet in front of her.

"You can't win this, Alex. Do you remember when you warned me that Evilini was going to steal my powers? How I went to Volcano Land anyway, and poor Professor Crumbs lost his powers saving me from her?"

_What? That's not what -_ _shit!_ Alex dodged to the side and ran as shafts of stone like the ones that had killed Max drove up from the ground in front of her. "I turned Evilini's spell on her and drained _her_ powers into me. Then old Crumbs showed up, and I had to drain him too, then wipe both their memories."

Alex stopped running for a moment, fired off another water blast at Justin, but he gestured and deflected the blast to the side. "I have _both_ their powers - and all the power that Evilini had drained before."

"Yeah?" Alex called back. _Keep him talking... I need to think..._ "You said you'd been there three times... what were the other two?" _Gotta get him off of me for a minute. But how? _She frowned, then nodded as a plan started to form.

"You remember that annoyance TJ? I drained him, took his precious damn power away. Then that idiot Hugh Normous found out, and of course he was going to tell you, so I drained him too."

_"Edgebono utoosis,_" Alex muttered as he spoke, then gave her duplicate a push, told it, "Run!" It ran, and Justin trapped it in a ring of stone, then grinned.

"And now I'll drain yours too, Alex, and I'll have the family wizard powers, like I should have."

Alex watched him approach the duplicate, crouching down under cover, chewing on her lower lip and trying to not to breathe loudly. _Got to time it just right. I need to get him in one shot._

Justin lifted his hand, and the ring parted for him. "It'll all be over in a few minutes," he said then. "Don't worry. You won't remember any of it."

"That's far enough, Justin Russo!"

_What?_ Alex looked toward the voice and saw Tootietootie, down on the field, his wand out. "Alex won the power fairly. Stand down."

Justin turned then to face Tootietootie, bringing both hands up into the air. "Drop the wand, Justin," the older man called. Alex watched tensely as Justin crouched down, holding his wand in just two fingers, bringing it down toward the ground.

He placed it down gingerly, let go, rose back up to his feet. When he was all the way back up, Tootietootie nodded. "Justin Russo, I hereby place you under arrest in the name of the wizard council," he started, walking forward, his wand still in front of him. "You are charged with -"

Tootietootie cut off as Justin dove to the side, pulling another wand out, and shot a blast of fire at him. He deflected it, but Justin waved his wand again, and a tremor rolled through the ground, knocking Tootietootie off his feet - and Alex as well, where she was still hiding.

A hand caught her by the arm, and she turned to look, blinked at her father. "Alex!" Jerry hissed. "Do you know what's wrong with Justin?"

She nodded quickly, swallowing. "I... we were arguing, and I wished he didn't have his overgrown conscience."

Jerry put his hand to his face. "And he wound up with no conscience. And the spell couldn't just take that away. He never had it. Alex -"

He cut off, ducking behind the stones as a bolt of lightning went over their heads, dragging Alex down with him as he did. "You have to undo the spell. And you need to do it right. You need to do it so it never happened. Do you understand?"

She nodded again. "Yeah. Just tell me what to say. I want this -"

There was a thunderous burst, and the two of them were knocked apart, sprawling to the ground. Alex couldn't see straight for a second, and when she could, she saw Justin, reaching down and grabbing her arm, hauling her to her feet. She looked past him then, and felt a cold chill as she saw a burning lump that had been Tootietootie.

"Ready for your trip to Volcano Land, love?" Justin asked, and Alex glared at him.

"You're not my love. You're not my Justin. And you can go to Hell!" she cried out, then spit in his face.

"Ah!" Justin released her wrist to wipe at the spit - and Alex waved her wand and teleported away.


	6. Chapter 6

Alex and Jerry appeared in the Lair, and she immediately turned to him. "Okay," she said. "Tell me how to undo this."

Jerry looked around, frowned a little as he recognized where they were. "Why -"

"No time for questions!" Alex said, holding up both hands. "Evil mirror-universe Justin isn't going to have a hard time finding us! Give me a spell to fix this!"

Looking back to his daughter, Jerry nodded, but said, "It's not that simple. Your spell's weaving itself into the fabric of reality. The longer it's been since you did it, the harder it's going to be. And -"

"All the more reason to quit telling me about how hard it's going to be and just tell me what to say!" Alex half-yelled back at her father. "You can give me the lecture later!"

"Okay, okay." Jerry stopped and closed his eyes, holding his left hand to the side of his face for a moment, then said, "It'll be best if we know the exact wording of the spell you used. Do you -"

Justin appeared, then, and immediately dropped to one knee and thrust his wand at the pair of them, shooting ropes forth from it. Alex immediately jumped to the side, but Jerry was too slow, and the ropes wrapped around him, bringing him crashing to the floor hard as they tied his legs and arms to his body.

"_Do what he did!_" Alex tried, stabbing her wand at Justin in return, ducking behind the couch as she did. Ropes shot out, but Justin called out "_Deflectere!_" and they went to the side, hitting the wall with a thump.

She lay behind the couch for a moment, trying to think. "Alex, give it up," she heard Justin saying. "All you can do is delay things. If my killing Max has you that upset, I can bring him back."

"Alex! Don't listen to him!" their father called out from his spot on the floor. "That's forbidden magic!"

_Yeah. That, and it still leaves Justin broken. No go,_ Alex thought as Justin laughed aloud. "Forbidden?" he said, his voice mocking. "Really, dad? You mean, like the spell I used to drain Evilini and Crumbs' power to me? Like the one I used to wipe your memory every time you caught me doing something I wasn't supposed to?"

_Yeah. You go off into your evil-guy speech, and give me time to think. That's what I need right now._ _I need to get Dad and me to somewhere where he won't find us right away, where we can have time to work out how to undo this. So first, I have to get to Dad._ She crawled forward a little as Justin continued talking, trying to get to a position where Justin couldn't see her, but she could see Jerry.

"I know all kinds of forbidden magic, Dad. I know things that aren't even in the book of forbidden spells. You'd be surprised what Evilini knew - and even more surprised at what Crumbs did. Yes, I can bring Max back from the dead. You just have to let me have the power, Alex."

"Let me think a second," she answered, tensing her legs as she did, getting ready to spring across the gap to where Jerry was. "NO!" she called out as she jumped, trying to stay as low as she could while she did. Things seemed like they were in slow motion, and she watched as Justin's arm came down with the wand, as his lips moved - and then something struck him from the side, spoiling his aim.

Alex didn't take time to wonder what had happened, but teleported again with Jerry as soon as her hand touched him.

"Damn!" Justin called out, turning to look to see who had thrown the book that had hit him - but there was no one there. Scowling, he waved his wand and called out, "_What I can't see can hurt me, so make the invisible visible!_"

Nothing seemed to happen, but he continued to look around for a moment, then shook his head. With an off-hand gesture, he slammed the door shut from across the room. "All right. With Dad to tell her what to do, Alex will be able to do some real magic, instead of just throwing things around at random. I need to find out where they are… and I need to separate them. So, first things first…."

He crossed the room in four quick steps, grabbed the crystal ball from the shelf where it was, then looked into it, concentrating.

* * *

This time, Alex and Jerry landed on the floor in Justin's old dorm room - surprising the hell out of the boy who was currently living there, along with his girlfriend, who both huddled back against the wall, pulling the bedsheet up to their chests and staring wide-eyed as Alex stood up from the floor.

"Sorry about that," she said. "It's a bit of an emergency. Once we're gone, you can - oh, skip it, I don't have time." She turned back to her father, waved her wand. "_Come on magic, don't be a dope, release my father from this rope._" The ropes slacked and fell off, and Alex reached a hand down to help her father up.

"We need to get out of here," Alex said. "Justin'll think of this place pretty quickly." Jerry nodded, and the two of them went out the door, ignoring the still-staring couple behind them. Alex turned right immediately and jogged to the stairs, Jerry on her heels. They went up two stories, out, and into one of the small communal kitchens that almost no one ever used.

"All right," Jerry said then, panting a little from the unaccustomed exercise. "What exactly did you say when you did whatever spell took away Justin's conscience?"

"'I wish you didn't have that overgrown conscience,'" Alex replied, and Jerry nodded.

"Uh-huh. And why -"

"_Dad_," she said insistently, not at all wanting to get into why she'd made that wish right now. "No _time_. What do I do to reverse it?"

"I don't know. Give me a minute." Jerry turned and leaned with both hands against the counter, staring down at it as he thought. Aloud, he mused, "You used the past tense - _didn't_. So the spell affected the past. The question is, how far back did it go?"

"He didn't drain Evilini's powers. Not the way I remember things," Alex offered.

"Okay… so that's at least, what - six years ago? And probably more than that. What you said didn't specify a time, so the spell most likely would have taken the simplest route, and gone back to the beginning - which, for its purposes, would be Justin's birth."

"And that's why you said he never had it?"

Jerry nodded to his daughter, stood up from the counter, turned to face her. "We'll try the simple way first. You'll need to wish that your spell to take away Justin's conscience never worked. That should bring you back to when you cast it."

Alex bit her lip, then said, "And if that doesn't work? What then?"

"Then you'll need to go back to when the spell took effect - to Justin's birth - and give him a conscience. But first, try -"

"_Found you!_" Justin's voice came, and he pointed his wand at Jerry and flicked it, causing their father to fly out the door and slam into the wall as if he'd been on strings. Jerry fell from the wall limply, but Justin didn't even turn his head, instead locking his eyes onto Alex. "This ends. Here. Now."

"Yeah? Don't think so," Alex replied, then called out, "_Fiat tenebrae!_" The windowless room was suddenly plunged into darkness as all the lights went out, and Alex moved to the side as quickly as she could without making noise, ducking down as she did. Something flew by her in the darkness, and she flinched away from it, then tightened her grip on her wand and concentrated. _Okay, here goes nothing_, she thought. _March 14, 1992, here I come._


	7. Chapter 7

The lights came back on, and Alex stood up, took a look around her. Not much seemed to be different in the little kitchenette, but the wallpaper did seem less faded, and there was actually a toaster, and the microwave was different. The oven, counters, and cabinets all looked the same, as well as the table and chairs, although the tablecloth was different on the table.

She breathed out slowly, tucked her wand away, then went out into the hallway. The differences were more apparent here - the walls were a color that Alex thought of as Industrial Standard Nauseating Green, rather than the blue they'd been. _Are going to be? Whatever. Things are too tense to be worrying about tenses._

She hurried down the hall, to the stairs, then down them, taking them two at a time. _Okay, so... Justin's going to be born today. Where was he born? _She bit her lip for a moment, then regretted it as she landed on a stair at the same time. _If it were me, this'd be easy. Call the Sunshine cab company and find out where cab 804 is. I could use a crystal ball to look for mom - no. The crystal balls are in the lair, and that doesn't exist yet, and if I go back to get it..._

Alex smiled then. _Wait. Nothing says I have to go back to the _present_ to get it. _Stopping on a landing, she took out her wand again, said, "_Justin without a conscience isn't so great, take me to the lair in two thousand and eight._"

She appeared there, then immediately froze as she noticed that Max was sitting on the couch. _What's he... oh no. _She turned her head away as she realized that he was eating some incredibly gross concoction. She recognized mashed potatoes, chicken strips, and chocolate syrup in the brief instant before she looked away. _Well, he's busy, so... _Two quick steps took her to the shelf where the crystal ball was, and she took it down. _I'll have to remember to put it back later. Or will I? If I fix the past, will I have ever had to make this trip?_

_No,_ she thought then, pocketing the ball and turning around. _Don't stand around wondering about how this works. That's Justin's job._ She closed her eyes then, the thought painful, then opened them - to find twelve-year-old Max looking straight at her. At _twenty-year-old_ her, not the fourteen-year-old she should be at this time.

"Alex?" he looked at her questioningly, and she did her best to smile like everything was normal. Her hormones were decidedly not cooperating, though, and she had to swallow and blink a few times, suddenly feeling weepy as she remembered that when she'd just come from, Max was _dead._

"Yeah?" she said, and her voice sounded wrong even to her. She braced herself for the inevitable question, thinking furiously about how to explain away being six years older.

"What happened to your lip?" Max asked then, and Alex blinked again, this time in surprise.

She touched it, found that her finger came away with a bit of blood on it. "Oh, I bit it by accident." She put the fake smile back on, said, "Clumsy me, huh?"

Max looked at her for a second, with that thousand-yard stare he had when he was thinking about something - usually something that had nothing at all to do with what anyone else in the room would be thinking. The sheer familiarity of it let Alex relax a little more, and she said, "Well, I've gotta go back downstairs. Talk to you -"

"Alex," he said again, then, and now he was looking at her, a look in his eyes that she didn't remember ever seeing there before. "I'm not as dumb as I let people think. I know what's going on with you and Justin."

"What?" She frowned, wondering what he thought he knew. _Well, whatever it is, no time for it now. _She shook her head and said, "Nothing's going on, Max."

His look changed, and this one, she knew - disappointment. "Don't lie," he said quietly. "I hear things, you know. And I've seen things, a couple of times. "I'm not letting Justin know that I know. I told Dad, once, and he went to talk to Justin about it, and then later he didn't remember it at all. So I know he's done something to Dad, and I'm guessing he's done something to you too. And maybe Mom."

Max paused a moment, and Alex simply stood mutely, wondering at this side of Max that she'd never seen - and also about what he'd seen. _We didn't start having sex until next year. But this isn't my past..._

"When I get my powers, I'll help you," Max said then. "I can't do anything about it now. But I won't let him keep... doing that to you."

_Oh my God,_ she thought then, realizing what Max was trying to say. _Justin - no. That monster is _not_ my Justin. I'm not going to call him by that name again._

Alex moved forward and hugged her little brother as tightly as she could. "Oh, Maxie... I..." She stopped, took a breath, let it out. _No. Every minute you spend here is another minute _he_ could find you. You've got to go._ "I'm sorry. Thank you, but - I have to go. Right now. I'm going to fix things, so you don't have to -"

She stopped, let go of Max, looked at him one last time, felt the tears start to well up. "I love you, Max," she said, trying to keep her voice from breaking, then waved her wand.

Back in the stairwell in nineteen ninety-two, Alex blinked tears from her eyes, wiped them with her sleeve, then took out the crystal ball she'd gotten. _Okay. I have to do this right. Concentrate and think._ She took almost a minute, working out the spells to use, then nodded.

"_Blood calls to blood, that is true so, show me where to find Theresa Russo._" An image came, of a hospital room. Her mom was on a bed, making expressions that clearly showed she was in labor, while Jerry sat on a chair beside her, saying something, obviously trying to be calming while not feeling at all calm himself. A sheet was draped over her thighs, and on the other side of it sat someone in medical scrubs and a mask, intent on what was happening between Theresa's legs. _That's me in - what? Seven and a half months?_ Alex shut the thought out immediately and concentrated again, willing the view in the ball to shift, out into the hall, then down it, looking through it for somewhere she could teleport to. _There. Waiting room, empty. Okay._

She took another breath, preparing herself, then dropped the crystal ball in shock as Justin appeared right next to her, grabbed her arm with his right hand, and yanked the wand from it with his left. "Time travel, Alex? I'm impressed. But you're still not good enough to beat me."

Alex grinned at him, said, "Beat you? Thanks for giving me the idea," then kicked him in the shin as hard as she could.

"Fuck!" Justin cried out as he let go of her to grab his leg and the railing, caught completely off-guard by the physical attack. "You're going to pay for that!" She ran past him, down the stairs, swung herself over the railing and onto the next flight two steps from the landing - and just in time as a blast of fire hit the wall, passing through where she'd just been.

Her eyes widened at that, but that was all the reaction she let herself have time for as she continued down the stairs, turning the next corner - to see Justin down on the landing below her. He raised his wand, hers still in the other hand - and then a blast of water hit him, coming from the next flight down, knocking him down.

Alex looked over the railing, saw a pretty blonde girl come running up the stairs, looking up at her. The girl flicked her wand, and Alex's came out of Justin's hand as if self-propelled, flew up to Alex, who caught it as much by reflex as anything else. "Go!" the girl called out. "There's no time for me to explain! I'll keep him busy - you go fix things!" She let loose another blast of water as Justin tried to get up, then yelled wordlessly as he stabbed angrily with his wand, sent her flying across the stairwell toward the wall. The blonde girl conjured some sort of shield, though, and it took the hit instead of her.

Beyond that, Alex didn't stay to watch. Instead, she closed her eyes and pictured the waiting room she'd seen, then teleported to it. A tall, heavy-set man pushing a big garbage can into the room let out a startled yell, but Alex simply ran past him and turned down the hall, counting doors as she went. She stopped at one, leaned over to peek in, saw her mother lying exhausted-looking on the bed, holding hands with her father while both looked at a small cart with a bright lamp, on which a tiny baby that seemed much, much too small to possibly be Justin was being examined by a gloved, masked, and gowned woman.

She wanted to look longer - but she knew she wasn't supposed to be here, not the way things _should_ be - and besides, that janitor was saying something into a phone about security, and who knew how long that girl who'd appeared to help could hold Justin? So she raised her wand, closed her eyes, pointed it at where the newborn Justin Russo was. Nothing would rhyme in her head, and so she simply hoped as hard as she could, picturing Justin - _her_ Justin, and all the stupid, crazy, _wonderful_ things he'd ever done because he wouldn't tell a lie, or wouldn't steal something, or wouldn't help her with some stupid scheme.

"I wish Justin to have an overgrown conscience. One that'll drive me crazy about ten percent of the time, and make me love him the other ninety. And I wish that that will put everything back the way it should be. _Please_," she said, forcing out the last word through tears. "I need him. God help me, I _need_ him."


	8. Chapter 8

Alex found herself back at the wizard competition arena, standing on the platform she, Max, and Jerry had first arrived on. They were all there - Justin, Jerry, Tootietootie, Max, and her.

Max looked down at his hands, turning them palms up, looked himself over as if he were amazed to be there - and then he jerked his head up, glared at Justin, stepped forward and punched him in the jaw, hard enough that Justin fell backward and barely managed to catch himself with his hands instead of landing on his butt.

"You _killed_ me!" Max cried out as Justin rubbed his jaw and looked up at him with a glazed expression. "Dammit, Justin, you -"

Alex pushed between them and put her hands on Max's upper arms. "Stop! It's not his fault, it's mine! I'm the one who cast the spell that... that made him like that, so don't take it out on him."

Looking at his children, Jerry blinked in confusion. "Wait... what happened? What spell?"

Max and Alex both looked at their father with confusion that matched his, while Justin started to stand up. "You don't remember?" Alex asked, but it was Tootietootie that answered.

"Of course he doesn't remember. He's not a wizard - or more properly, he wasn't a wizard during any of the alternate timestream. It's just like the effect of the do-over spell - only wizards remember, and even then only if they were directly affected by the changes."

Looking miffed, Jerry said, "So someone messed with time? Alex... what did you do?"

"What? Why do you assume it was me!" Alex protested, mostly out of sheer habit.

"Because you're the one who won the competition, the way I remember things. So you're the only one who _has_ powers now, so if someone messed with time after the competition - which must be the case, since the four of you are all starting to talk about it _now_ - you're the only one here who could have done it." He paused a moment, then off-handedly said, "Well, Tootietootie _could_, but he wouldn't have any reason to."

Alex stared at her father for a second as she realized that he was right - she _had_ won the competition, here as well, it seemed. She could feel the power in her, and -

A shimmering of light happened to the right, and Alex blinked as the blonde girl who had helped her against Justin in nineteen ninety-two appeared, then blinked again as the girl ran to Max and threw her arms around him. "You're alive!" she called out, and Max hugged her in return, squeezing tightly.

"I'm sorry, Tutor," he said then, his expression shamed. "I... I didn't win..."

Tutor turned from him then, letting go of Max to whirl and face Alex with a furious expression that made her back up a step. "You! Gods! Max told me you were irresponsible, but - you got him _killed_!" She pulled out her wand, said, "You don't _deserve_ the power! I should -"

Justin stepped in front of Alex, looking at Tutor, and very quietly said, "No. You want her, you have to go through me."

"Through _you_? You don't even have any powers any more!" Tutor started to laugh, then cut off as Justin took a step toward her.

"Maybe I don't. But no one -"

"Justin," Alex said, touching his arm from behind. "She's right."

"What?" several voices said, Justin's among them. Everyone looked at Alex then, and she looked around at all of them, then at Justin. Nervously, she licked her lips.

"Before I say anything else - this is _you_, right? You're not evil Justin?"

Justin looked at Alex for a moment, then nodded. "It's me," he said softly. As he did, Justin put his hand out, took Alex's, squeezed it. She smiled at him, at the warm familiarity of his hand holding hers.

"Okay, then. Justin - you are the most important thing in the world to me. And after what just happened, I've realized... the thing that's most likely to take you away from me is me messing around with magic. So -" She realized she was starting to cry again, broke off for a moment as she wiped at her face. Justin watched her with a gentle smile, while Max and Jerry were both staring with nonplussed looks.

"I hope I'm not going to break out crying about every little thing now," Alex finally said, and Justin moved forward and hugged her, kissed her on top of her head.

"It's okay," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "I'm here. Always."

Alex nodded to that, then pulled away from him a little, looked around at everyone again. "The only thing I've ever really done with my magic is screw things up, and now - I have things that are too important to screw up. Max - I'm giving the magic to you."

It was Max's turn to look surprised, then. "To _me_? Not to -"

Alex shook her head. "We've talked about it. Justin doesn't want it." Justin nodded in agreement as Alex went on, saying, "If I gave it to him, he'd just give it to you. So it's yours." She looked to her father and Tootietootie. "How do I -"

"The spell goes like this," Justin answered. "This power I do not wish to bear, so to you, Max, I give its care."

Jerry and Tootietootie both blinked at Justin, but Jerry spoke first. "I never taught you that... and it's not a standard part of any training. How did you -"

Justin rolled his eyes. "I read ahead. I knew if I won, I'd be giving up the power, so..." He shrugged.

Alex smiled for a moment at her older brother, squeezed the hand that was still holding hers, then spoke the spell. A ball of light zipped from her to Max, and Tutor smiled at Alex, then put her arm around Max and leaned her head on his shoulder.

For a few moments, everyone was silent, and then Tootietootie shook his head. "Well - I think we've all had more than enough excitement for one day here. In the name of the Wizard Council, I pronounce that Alex is the winner of the competition, and in the name of the Wizard Council, I accept Alex's ceding of her magic to Max. The competition is ended."

"Uhh..." Alex put up her hand, said, "Actually, there's something else I'd like to say." She paused as everyone looked, then quickly blurted out. "Justin and I are in love. And I'm pregnant."


	9. Chapter 9

"You're - you - he - gah..." Jerry Russo staggered as if he'd been dealt a physical blow, his face going white, and Alex and Justin both moved forward, each taking one of their father's arms. Tootietootie lifted his wand and conjured a chair right behind Jerry, and the two of them helped him sit down onto it.

They both knelt by their father, watching him with concern. After a few moments, Jerry spoke again, his voice heavy. "You're pregnant. With Justin's child."

"Yes," Alex said, nodding. "I'm sorry. I wish I didn't have to tell you like this, but..." Not knowing what more to say, Alex trailed off into silence.

"I take it this isn't normal in the mortal world?" Tootietootie asked then, looking at the rest of them as if they were crazy people.

"No," Alex answered. "It's - wait," she said then, and looked away from her father, up to Tootietootie. "Are you saying it _is_ normal in the wizard world?"

The chancellor shrugged. "It's... a little odd, but not considered a big deal. It used to be more common, when there were fewer wizards. In Egypt, when the Wizard Council got started, it was common even among mortals, from what I understand."

Max stepped up then, grabbed his sister by the arm, hauled her to her feet and looked down at her, his expression angry. "You're together. With _him._"

Alex nodded, finding herself unable to speak. Max looked from her to Justin, looked back to Alex again. "And he got you pregnant?" He didn't wait for her nod, but simply shook his head quickly, then took a step toward Justin and punched at his jaw again. This time, however, Justin ducked to the side, standing up as he did, raising both hands in front of himself.

The youngest Russo stepped forward again, took another swing. "Whoa, Max," Justin said, "I know you're mad -" he ducked another swing, moved around the chair, trying to keep away, "and you've got every right to be -"

"Mad? _Mad_? I'm fucking _furious_!" he cried out, circling as Justin tried to keep the chair between them, and Jerry watched his two sons with disbelief from it. "What did you do to her, Justin? What kind of sick spell did you -"

Alex grabbed Justin as he circled by her and pulled him back, moving in front of him as she did. "Max, stop it! He didn't put any spell on me! I fell in love with him all on my own!"

He came forward again, fists up, but Alex moved into the way, saying, "_Please!_ Use undo dust on me or something if you want! There's no spell on me. I love him, and if you hurt him, you hurt me!"

_"Damn_ you two!" Max stopped chasing Justin, his hands still clenched into fists as he glared at both of them. "It's _always_ been like this. Justin and Alex. Alex and Justin. And me? I'm just the fifth wheel. The one you two would ditch whenever you got the chance."

"Max," Alex started, stepping toward him, "that's not -"

He cut her off, waving a hand between them to keep her from him. "Yeah? If you'd gotten Justin back and I was still dead, you would have been okay with that, wouldn't you? I mean, sure, you'd have cried and all, but it wouldn't be like it would be for _him_," Max said, waving a hand at Justin. He shook his head quickly, glared again at Alex. "I supported you when you told me you were a lesbian, but this -"

"When I -" Alex started, then shut her mouth. _Oh. Lexie must have told him - and didn't think to tell _me_ that she told him. _"Max, I can explain -"

"_Don't_!" Max yelled at her. He raised his wand, and Alex took a step back. Justin stepped forward, his eyes on the wand, moving between Max and Alex. "I don't want to hear any explanations!" Max went on, gesturing with the wand as he did. "I don't want to see _either_ of you _ever _again! Goodbye!"

And then he was gone, vanished. "He looked up to you," Tutor said quietly, shaking her head slowly. "I - never mind," she finished, shaking her head. "I hope you two will be happy," she finished, and then she disappeared as well.

Alex swallowed, closed her eyes for a moment, then looked to her father, felt her eyes starting to flood with tears as she expected more yelling. "Daddy? Please -"

Jerry stood back up and opened his arms, and Alex rushed into them, started to sob into his chest as he stroked her hair. "I'm sorry, Daddy," Alex got out. "I know I messed everything up -"

"Shh. Shh." Jerry stroked his daughter hair again. "Alex - you're my little girl. I can't say I'm happy with this, but I want you to be happy. And I'm not going to push you out of my life when... when you're going to have my grandchild," he said, his voice getting husky as he finished.

He looked then at Justin, who was standing watching them, arms hanging at his sides, hands clenching and unclenching, his face a mask of uncertainty. Opening one arm, Jerry said, "Come here," and Justin did, joining into the hug.

For a few moments, the three of them didn't speak, and Alex's tears slowed, then stopped. "Thank you, Daddy," she said then, and Jerry nodded as Justin echoed her with a "Thanks, Dad."

"Princess -" Jerry shook his head, smiling even though his eyes were sad. "You know how I always said you were never going to find a boy good enough for you?" She nodded, and Jerry chuckled, his mouth twisting ironically. "Well, you found one I can't say anything bad about."

He looked from her to Justin then, looked his son in the eyes. "You break her heart and I _will_ beat your ass. Even though you're my son."

Justin nodded. "If I break her heart, I want you to." Another half a minute or so passed, and then Jerry released Alex and Justin, stepped back from them. Justin stayed against Alex, letting an arm slip around her.

"Max..." Jerry sighed and shook his head. "I hope he'll forgive you eventually. Your mother's not going to take this well," Jerry said then, raising a hand to his forehead. "I don't know how we're going to tell her. Or anyone else, for that matter."

"We..." Alex started to say, _We don't have to_, but stopped. "I don't know either. And Dad, umm... there's something else."

Jerry looked at his daughter, his mouth open in disbelief, then shook his head quickly. "Wait. Don't tell me you have something _more_ than what you've just told me?"

"Well... a few years back, I kind of accidentally created a duplicate that became real. She's the Alex who's been living with you the past few years. I've been living with Justin."

For a moment, Jerry stared at Alex, then closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out. "Okay," he said then. "My daughter is now twins. Anything else? Because if there is anything else, I think I'm going to need to sit down again."

"No." Alex shook her head. "That's it."

Tootietootie broke in then, saying, "Okay. I'm afraid you're all going to have to be done here now, because I can't stay here all day, and I don't think Max is coming back to get you. Justin, Alex - I need you to give me your wands, please." He held out his hand toward them. Justin put his wand into Tootietootie's hand first, then Alex followed, dropping hers into his hand like she couldn't get rid of it fast enough.

"I'm going to take you back to your Lair now. And speaking of that -"

"I know," Jerry said, nodding. "It'll have to be de-powered, once Max gets his established."

"Yes. Unless Kelbo elects to keep using it as his lair." Tootietootie grimaced. "Officially, of course, he's supposed to cut off contact with you now. But it can take the Council a while to make any sort of official investigation, and knowing Kelbo, I doubt he'll want to change anything until someone forces the issue."

Alex blinked. "Oh - Uncle Kelbo! We'll have to tell him too!" She looked to her father. "How do you think he'll take it?"

"He should take it okay," Jerry answered. "I think he knows some... some couples like the two of you, in the wizard world."

Alex and Justin both smiled at that news, and Tootietootie finished putting away the wands they'd given him, then lifted his own wand and transported them back to the lair.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Updates will probably be less frequent for the next week or so than they have been these past two weeks, since I'm going to have family visiting for New Year's. Then again, they might not be, since I'm feeling a bit obsessed with my stories right now.

Random bits: I decided while writing _Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics _that Max wasn't going to take the news about Alex and Justin well at all. The main reason I decided to go that way is that in almost every Jalex fic I read where the truth comes out, Max accepts it as a matter of course - so in part I just wanted to handle it differently. But it also seems to fit him, to me - in the movie, he complains about them ditching him, and refers to them having done it in the past. To me, his finding out for sure that they have a different kind of love for each other than for him is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

The 'incest is common in the wizard world' thing is something a lot of people do in this fandom, I know - here I'm somewhat throwing it in, to give us an observer who thinks Jerry's reaction is crazy, and really won't understand Max's. It's not going to be much of a help to Justin and Alex anyway, since they can't go live in the wizard world. (Could they share the power, by marrying each other in the wizard world? I'm undecided on that, but I don't think it matters here anyway, as I've set things up - Alex doesn't want the power now, since she's realized that Justin is more important to her, and, as she said in the last chapter, magic is the thing most likely to split them up. Right at this point, even if she were offered that as an out, she wouldn't take it.)

Wow, I'm yammering on here today. While I'm going on... The series doesn't tell us what happens to magical things that someone created during their student wizard days if they don't win the competition. I toyed with the idea that Alex giving up her powers might destroy Lexie, but I decided that would be too much of a downer. And besides, I've specifically called her 'real' in the past, so it wouldn't make sense from that perspective. So Lexie's a permanent addition to AGP universe. Expect to see more of her down the road. Possibly in the semi-literal sense as well as the figurative one.

This story will probably run a few more chapters, finishing up with the aftermath of the competition and Alex's revealing of their secret. The next story in the series will be called _Normal Life_, and, of course, _Nine Kinks_ is still ongoing.


	10. Chapter 10

The four of them appeared in the lair, and Tootietootie immediately stepped away from the other three. "Well," he said, nodding to Justin and Alex, "I wish you the best of luck together, and the best for your baby."

"Thank you," they both said in return, holding hands and smiling. He smiled and nodded in return, then went on. "Alex, since you won the competition, your children will be eligible to be wizards, just as the three of you were, due to your father winning. "Normally, you'd have the option of giving up their eligibility in favor of another sibling's children, but any children Max might have _should_ be eligible from their mother, since he won't be permitted to marry a mortal without giving up the powers." He paused and smiled, then went on, "And it appears that giving it up for Justin's children won't be an option, since they'll also be yours."

Alex was disconcerted for a moment by that, and after a second, said, "Uh… I hadn't really thought about that. Is there anything we have to do now?"

"No," Tootietootie replied, shaking his head. "You'll be contacted when your first child's powers start to come in. It's possible that your child might not even inherit the potential - although it's very unlikely, with both of you being wizards."

"All right," Justin said to that. "I can definitely do the training."

Alex gave him a look, said, "_We_ can do the training. I _do _know a few things too, you know." She grinned, elbowed Justin slightly. "Enough to win the competition, at least." Justin didn't say anything to that, but simply hugged Alex for a moment.

Tootietootie turned to Jerry as Alex shifted to return the hug. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you again, Jerry," he said, offering a hand to him. "but until we meet again, farewell."

"Goodbye," Jerry said in return as they shook hands, and then Tootietootie waved his wand with a last nod to all of them, and was gone. The three of them stood silent for a moment, until Jerry spoke.

"Well… I guess I should go to talk to your mother. Kind of soften her up for you." He sighed and frowned as he started to turn, but Alex reached out and grabbed his wrist.

"Dad… honestly, you've never really been good at explaining things to Mom without getting her mad. It might be better if you don't."

Jerry grimaced, but nodded. "Yeah… I suppose you're right. So… who's going to talk to her?"

"I will," Alex and Justin both said at the same time. They looked at each other, then Justin said, "You're better at persuading people - but if Mom needs to be mad at somebody, I'd rather it be me than you." He squeezed her hand, said, "With you being pregnant, you'll want to be able to talk to her."

Alex shook her head. "I'm not letting you try to take all the blame," she said. "It's not like you did this all by yourself," she said, smiling. "I kind of cooperated."

"You did more than 'kind of' cooperate," Justin said with a grin, and started to move to kiss Alex when their father cleared his throat.

"Umm - I'm still not completely comfortable with this," Jerry said, grimacing a little, "so could you keep it to hugs and things like that around me right now?"

"Oh, right - sure. Sorry," Justin said, but Jerry waved it away.

"I'll leave you two alone for a minute. I can at least tell her that Max won, but he didn't come back with us. I'll leave the other stuff to you."

Alex nodded, and she and Justin waited a moment until their father had left the room, then kissed, with Alex stretching up as they wrapped their arms around each other. They held the kiss for several seconds, playing with each other's lips and tongues before breaking it to look into each other's eyes, smiling.

"I thought I'd lost you," Alex said, ruffling the hair on the back of Justin's head. She lowered herself down from tiptoe and relaxed against him, leaning her head on his shoulder. "I know I don't say it much, but I need you. Especially now."

Justin kept his arms around his sister, holding her almost uncomfortably tight, and swallowed before he spoke. "I - he -" He stopped and shook his head, lips smacking a little as he worked his mouth, not sure what to say.

Alex squeezed him in return. "It's okay. Say he. That - that Justin wasn't you. He wasn't anything like you."

"I remember it all, though," Justin said then. "Everything he did, everything he thought, everything he _knew_. It's all here in my head. He - he didn't love you. He didn't care at all about anyone but himself." He squeezed harder, enough to draw a noise from Alex, then loosened his grip. "Sorry. It's just... it's like some kind of slime, inside my head. Everything feels dirty. He was laughing inside, when he killed Max. At the end, he was ready to kill you. And -"

"Shh." Alex stretched up again, kissed Justin on the cheek. "It wasn't you. It was the spell. It's okay. I know you'd never do anything like that. You're my Justin, and you'd never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it."

He nodded to that, slowly, though the look on his face was still pained, and when he spoke, his voice was bitter. "I don't think Max believes that right now."

"Give him time. He remembers... that Justin killing him. And he doesn't know you as well as I do. And... if you have the memories of that other Justin," Alex said, realizing it as she was saying it, "he has memories about him, too. That's got to be confusing." She paused a moment, then said, "I went to the lair in 2008 to get the crystal ball I used to find where you were being born. He was there, and... he said something about knowing what you - what that Justin had done to me. I think -"

"He raped you," Justin said, closing his eyes. "I remember it." He turned his head upward, away from Alex, and she reached up, put her hands on both sides of his head, forcibly pulled it down and looked into his eyes.

"That wasn't you. And I don't remember it anyway. So don't beat yourself up about it. I love you, and you love me, and I _know_ you would never hurt me. Okay?"

Justin nodded jerkily, closing his eyes, licked his lips and swallowed before he answered. "Okay. But... I don't think I want to play rough for a little while."

Alex smiled a little, gave her brother a soft kiss. "Sure," she said, then sighed. "I guess I need to get out there and talk to Mom before Dad breaks down and starts to try to talk to her about us." She lingered a few more seconds, holding onto Justin, then finally let go with a deep sigh. "Come on. Let's go out and face the music."

They went out of the lair, holding hands until they got to the stairs. There, Alex went first, frowning a little as a plan took shape in her mind about how to handle telling their mother. As she reached the living area, Alex consciously dropped the frown and put on a timid look.

"_There_ you two are," Theresa said, coming over to them. She gave Justin a hug, then Alex. "Your father tells me you gave Max your powers," she said as she released Alex, "and that you have something you want to tell me yourself?"

Alex nodded in reply, suddenly finding it hard to speak. "I... can we talk about it alone, Mom? Please?" She bit her lip as she found that she didn't need to fake nervousness at all now.

Theresa gave Alex a curious frown, but nodded. "Of course, mija."

"We'll be downstairs," Justin said, and he and Jerry headed down the stairs, Justin casting a last look back at Alex as he did. As they left, Theresa and Alex moved to the couch and sat down.

"All right," Theresa said. "What do you want to tell me about that's so important that you gave up your wizard powers?"


	11. Chapter 11

Alex took a deep breath, then said, "Mom - there's something I want to do first, before I tell you. Do you remember when we went to Harper and Zeke's wedding? That thing they read about love there?" Theresa nodded, and Alex said, "I want to read that with you."

Theresa looked at her daughter for a moment, then stood up, nodding. "Let me get that, then." She moved to their bookshelf, took down the book, then returned to the couch, opening it and flipping through as she did. "Here it is." She put her finger to the passage, and they read together:

"Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;  
it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  
it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.  
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.  
For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;  
but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.  
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.  
So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Theresa shut the book and set it aside, her eyes shining a little, then took Alex's hands and looked at her. "I love you, mija. I think I know what you're trying to say, and I'm still going to love you, no matter what you tell me. So tell me."

Nodding, Alex swallowed, then said, "Mom, I'm pregnant."

"Oh, baby..." Theresa put her arms around her daughter and hugged her. "I kind of thought it might be that. It's all right. You know your father and I will help you." She paused a moment, took a breath, then said, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to... but who's the father?"

Alex swallowed, closed her eyes tightly, held onto her mother hard. "That's the really hard part, Mom. I know you're going to be mad, but please try to understand..."

"Honey... I said you don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Theresa paused, swallowed, then said, "And if you don't know..." She let that trail off, not sure how to end it, then said, "I'll still love you anyway."

"Thank you. I love you too," Alex said, then swallowed again. _It was so much easier just blurting it out at the arena._ She tensed in preparation for her mother's reaction, then said, "It's Justin."

Alex felt her mother go stiff in her arms and mentally cringed, preparing for the yell to come. But only silence came, and after a few seconds, she opened her eyes cautiously and looked to see her mother silently weeping.

"Mom?" she said then. "I'm sorry. I -"

Theresa shook her head. "No. No. It's my fault. I... I left you two alone too much together. I wasn't there for you enough, and..." She stopped, shook her head again, then squeezed Alex tightly. "I'm sorry, mija, I -"

"No, mom - you didn't do anything wrong! It's not anyone's fault! It -"

"I have to have done _something_ wrong." Theresa pulled away from Alex, trying to turn away from her. "It's not natural. It's not _right_. The two of you shouldn't -" She broke off there, said, "I failed you as a mother. I pushed you together too much." With a pained expression, she raised her hand to her face. "God - I even said he'd be a good catch for you, when you had that business with the genie! I'm a terrible -"

Alex pulled her mother's hand down, looked at her. "Mom - you were _right_. He _is_ a good catch. He's a good man, and you know it. He loves me. And he'll be a great dad -"

"He shouldn't be those things for _you_, though!" Theresa made two fists, hit her own thighs with them. "It's not right! For God's sake, he's your _brother_, Alex!"

"Mom..." Alex shook her head sadly, swallowed. "I know it's not normal. But it feels so right - there's nobody I feel safer with. There's nobody who makes me feel loved the way Justin does." She grabbed her mother's wrists, held onto them as Theresa tried to pull away. "I can't change what we've already done, and I wouldn't if I could. I'm just asking for you to try to understand. I'm just asking for my baby to have a grandmother. _Please_," she said her voice cracking. "Even if you don't want to have anything to do with us any more, it's not the baby's fault. Please."

Theresa turned her face away from Alex, closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. After a moment, she said, "And what are you going to do with the baby, Alex? Are -"

"I'm not giving my baby up," Alex said, her voice firm and final. "_We're_ not giving _our_ baby up."

Turning back to Alex, Theresa asked sharply, "Are you going to raise it knowing it's mother and father are brother and sister? Are you going to pretend you're not for the rest of your lives?"

"I don't know," Alex admitted. "But its our baby and nobody else's. It -"

"Yes," Justin said from the stairs, and they both turned and looked at him, startled. He raised his hand to his nose, scratched the side of it nervously. "Sorry. I couldn't stay down there and let you do this by yourself," he said to Alex, then looked to their mother. "Alex is moving to California with me. We'll say we're married, so she can be on my insurance. And... we'll tell people her parents are dead. And she calls the two of you Mom and Dad because you've treated her like a daughter."

Alex and Theresa both opened their mouths, but Justin raised his hand and gave them a hard, determined look. "That's what we're doing. It's the only plan that works, because otherwise, we'd have to be explaining why we have the same last name as you, if she's your daughter and I'm not your son."

He crossed to the couch and stood over Alex and Theresa, putting his hand on Alex's shoulder. "And Alex is right. You didn't do anything wrong. I can't explain why we fell in love with each other, but - _nothing_ is breaking us apart. Ever." Justin looked down into his mother's eyes, said, "I'm sorry to have to say this, but if you can't deal with us being together, then you lose us both - and your grandchildren. I love you, Mom, but Alex... Alex is my soulmate. I won't leave her for anything."

"Mom," Alex put in then, shifting her grip to her mother's hand, "'Love bears all things.'"

Theresa narrowed her eyes at her children and retorted, "'Love does not rejoice at wrong' too."

"We're not asking you to be happy about it," Justin said. "Just not to stop loving us. And to love your grandchild... your grand_children_, if we should have more."

Sighing, Theresa said, "I _do_ love you both. That's why this hurts so much. I don't want to see you do the wrong thing."

Justin sighed at that, put his other hand on his mother's shoulder, tried not to wince when she cringed away from him. She didn't remove his hand, though, and he squeezed her shoulder. "It's too late for that. And I can't wish this never happened - I'm sorry it hurts you, but I love Alex too much to do that. So all I can do is ask you to forgive us." Still holding onto Alex and Theresa's shoulders, Justin lowered himself down to his knees, to eye level with the two of them, looked into his mother's eyes. "So please - please forgive us, and try to understand." He paused, swallowed, said, "We need you. And our children will need a grandmother."

Theresa looked down into her lap, her expression sad and pained, and Alex and Justin both waited, Alex bringing one hand up to lay it on Justin's. After seconds that felt like minutes, their mother nodded slowly. "I forgive you," she said, her voice just a whisper. "I can't lose half my family."

Alex and Justin moved to her, then, both hugged her, and she let them, though she did not return their embrace. After a moment, she asked, "Is this why Max left?"

"Yes," Alex admitted. "He thinks Justin put some kind of spell on me - which he didn't. I think he knows it's not true - I told him he could try to take it off me, if he wants, and see there's no spell. That's when he said he didn't want to see us again and left."

Theresa nodded and sighed a little. "Well... I'm not going to try to persuade him to your side. If I'm going to put up with your decision to be together, I'm going to respect his decision too."

"We wouldn't ask you to," Justin said, then closed his eyes. "And Mom... there's one more thing."

She pulled back from them then, frowned and looked at both of them. "What?"

Justin didn't answer, but turned his head toward the stairs and called out, "Come on up." A few moments later, Jerry came up the stairs, with Lexie following. With a sheepish smile, Lexie waved at Theresa and said, "Hi. I'm - I'm kind of your new daughter."

* * *

The passage quoted above is, of course, 1 Corinthians, 13:4-13. I'm not a Christian, but I recognize wisdom where I see it... and as a writer, my characters don't necessarily have the same beliefs that I do, any more than they necessarily have any other opinions in common with me. Going to church has been mentioned at least once on the show, and TVtropes says that there are St. Gabriel candles in the lair (I don't know - wouldn't know those from any other candles if you set me on fire with them). Proceeding on the assumption that they might be Catholic, the version quoted is from the Revised Standard Version.


	12. Chapter 12

"I think she's coming around." Theresa blinked a couple of times, then opened her eyes fully, to find Jerry, Justin, Alex, and Lexie all clustered around her, looking concerned.

"I told you that wasn't a good idea." Lexie gave Justin and Jerry both a quick glare as she said that, then reached a hand down to take Theresa's. "Are you okay, Mom?"

"Okay?" Theresa gave a laugh, and Alex and Justin glanced at each other, each trying to confirm if the other heard the same hysterical edge in it. "No, not really. I can't say I ever dreamed someone might tell me I had a daughter I didn't know about."

Lexie opened her mouth to say something, but Theresa held up a hand to stop her, closed her eyes for a moment as she just breathed in and out for several seconds. "Okay. Tell me what happened to cause _this_. Slowly."

"I messed up a duplication spell," Alex said, sitting down on the edge of the couch. "She started having her own emotions, and then the spell wouldn't put her back together with me."

Theresa looked up at Jerry. "Did you know about this?"

"Not until today," Jerry said, shaking his head.

"Okay. How long ago did this happen?"

Alex bit her lip and looked down. "Four and a half years ago," Justin said. He paused a moment before going on. "When we realized Lexie - that's what Alex and I call her -"

"Yeah, because the great brain can't handle calling us _both_ Alex," Lexie put in with an eye roll. Justin gave her an annoyed look.

"As I was saying, Alex moved in with me, and Lexie stayed here."

Theresa gave them a disbelieving look, then pointed at Lexie. "So... _she's _the one who's been living here the last four years?"

"Yes," Lexie said. "If it helps, I have all the same memories Alex does. I remember you as my mom."

For a moment, Theresa stared at Lexie, then she shook her head briefly. "Are you in love with Justin too?"

Lexie rolled her eyes and laughed. "No, I didn't get _that_. And believe me, I'm glad I didn't."

"Well, that's a blessing, at least. Does Max know?"

"No," Justin answered. "He left before we got to that. He should be told, though."

"Yeah," Lexie said, nodding and glaring at Justin. "_I _shouldn't have to stop being able to talk to him just because he's mad at you two."

"Yeah?" Justin glared back. "Well, you know -"

Alex sighed. _Is that how we used to act? _"Stop it. We're not talking about Max right now." Looking to their mother, she said, "As you can see, she's not a perfect duplicate of me. So she really is more like a twin."

Theresa shook her head, said, "I thought maybe we could have something like a normal family once the competition was over. I see I was definitely wrong about that."

Lexie laughed quietly. "Normal is boring, Mom. And we've never been boring." She moved around Alex, kneeled down by Theresa. "But hey - I'm not moving across the country. So you'll still have me here."

Alex looked a little uncomfortable at that, but didn't say anything. _She's not trying to replace me. She just wants to be with her Mom too_, she thought, but she didn't feel entirely sure about that. Automatically, she reached for Justin's hand. He took hers, squeezed it, and she smiled. _It's funny how much better that makes me feel._ For a moment, she felt an urge to chuckle, but she fought it down.

"Well..." Jerry looked around at them all. "Why don't we keep talking over dinner?" Everyone looked at him, and he frowned. "What? I get hungry. And the food's getting cold."

For a moment, Theresa looked at her husband, and then she laughed and shook her head. "It's good to know that _some_ things haven't changed around here." She looked around at all of them, then sat up. Alex and Lexie moved out of the way, and Theresa stood up off the couch. She looked at them both, then sighed. "Come on, kids. Let's eat."

Lexie and Alex both hugged her at that, and if there was a sad edge to Theresa's smile, no one commented on it.

It was almost midnight when Justin and Alex got back to their apartment uptown. The dinner conversation had been a careful study in avoiding the elephants in the room for the first half hour, until Lexie had made a comment about how much Alex was eating, and Theresa had told her not to make fun of her sister when she was eating for two.

Lexie had cried then, but waved away Justin and Jerry's moves toward her, had gone and hugged their mother, and thanked her for calling her Alex's sister.

After that, the tension in the room seemed to drain away, and they talked about the baby and about Justin and Alex's move, and what would need to be done for both. It was agreed that the three of them would come out to visit in a few months, once Justin and Alex were settled in - and, of course, they'd be coming out again when she had the baby. Alex hoped that maybe Max would be okay with them by then.

A little after eleven, Theresa had pointed out that they weren't going to be able to just teleport back home, and so they took their leave, mostly at her insistence that Alex needed to be getting more sleep while she still could.

"How are you feeling?" Justin asked as he closed and locked the door behind them.

"Exhausted," Alex answered, then gave her brother a quick smile. "But happy. How about you?" She moved to Justin, put her legs and hips against him, leaning back a little to look up at him, her arms slipping around his waist.

"The same." He smiled back, slid his arms around Alex, then hugged her close for a moment. "I love you."

"I love you too." She paused, asked, "Always and forever?"

"You know it." Justin kissed Alex on her eyebrow, stooped a little to kiss her on the mouth, then grinned and crouched down on one knee, pulled her shirt partway up and kissed her just above her belly button. "And I love you too. Always and forever."

Standing back up, he put his arms behind Alex's knees and back, lifted her off her feet, smiled at her, then carried her into their bedroom, turning sideways to go through the door.


	13. Chapter 13

Justin looked at the clock, sighed slightly at the steady green lights reading 3:13. _It's a good thing I don't have work or school tomorrow_, he thought, and shook his head a little. _All right. Between left-over adrenalin and curiosity, it looks like I'm not getting to sleep right now. So..._

He carefully moved away from Alex on the bed, watching to make sure he wasn't waking her up, got to the edge and swung one foot down onto the floor, waited ten seconds before bringing the other one down and standing. He waited again then, watching his sleeping sister, smiling a little at her. After a few more seconds, he moved to the bedroom door, opened it carefully, then slipped out into the main room of the tiny apartment, closed the door carefully behind him, crossed to the desk and turned on the lamp there.

_I shouldn't be doing this... but I have to know if it's true. _He looked through Alex's art supplies, carefully separated a piece of paper from her drawing pad, selected a pen. Drawing the diagram was easier than expected, his arm naturally making the circles, then writing in the characters with an ease that bespoke previous practice.

Justin had to set the pen down for a moment at that realization. _I've never drawn this. But it's all here. God, this is crazy. Or I'm going crazy. _Tremors suddenly ran through his body, and he gripped the corners of the desk, fighting to get them under control, concentrating on taking slow breaths in and out. When the tremors had gone, and he felt sure enough that they weren't going to return, Justin completed the diagram, then got up and went to the kitchen, came back with a knife and a few pinches of herbs from the spice rack, mixed and placed into a ceramic bowl.

He had to go back again, then, to get the long lighter he used for their candles, stopped to disable the smoke alarm on his way back. _Don't think it should be enough to trigger it, but don't want to wake up Alex with this._

With everything in place, he sat down, then changed his mind, picked it all up and moved into the kitchen. Justin sat the bowl with the herbs on the stove, smoothed the diagram down on the counter beside it, double-checked that none of the lines had smeared. He turned on the fan in the stove's hood, took a deep breath, then began to recite the spell, lighter in hand as he did.

He lit the herbs partway through, concentrated on not coughing from the bit of smoke that made its way to him. Thankfully, most of it went into the hood, and there wasn't really a lot to begin with.

Reaching the crucial step, Justin repeated it once, twice, then the third and final time. In fascinated horror, he watched as wisps of the smoke pulled themselves into the space above the diagram and arranged themselves, becoming the thing he had conjured. Dizzily, he gripped the edge of the counter. _It works. Oh my God, it works. I - he was right. There _is_ more than one way to do magic._

Mechanically, he went through with the rest of it. The hardest part - not the worst, merely the hardest - was cutting his hand to get the blood that was needed, but he wiped the blade down with an alcohol wipe, closed his eyes, and somehow managed it. All the while, in the back of his mind, Justin reflected on what he was doing. _I should have realized it sooner - the magic power plant, the competitions, all of it - it all had to be established in the first place somehow. Of course there has to be another way to empower magic. More than one, probably. _

And then it was done. If what the other Justin believed was correct - and so far, they seemed to be, in every detail - he'd be able to do magic for about fifteen minutes. A short time, for what was involved, and the power was limited. Yet still...

He tried a few spells, quickly, testing the limits of what he could do, keeping what he was doing small, not sure if the power would run out more quickly if he did bigger things. _It works. But..._ Justin sighed, frowned. _This is forbidden magic. _Really_ forbidden. If the Council should find out..._

The Council. The other Justin's memories fell into place with his own, and he swallowed, realizing what they would do. They didn't care about right and wrong - he'd seen that himself, with Tootietootie's reaction to his - _no, the other Justin's_ - killing Max in the competition. As long as magic was kept secret, and the few limits they set on what wizards could do were obeyed...

_They don't care. They let leprechauns be enslaved. They let people kill and capture dragons. They let wizards run around loose, doing whatever they want, as long as no one reveals the existence of magic. But this they can't allow. A source of magic they don't control. They'd kill me if they knew. They'd kill Alex if they thought she might know too._

_This is too dangerous. _Justin made his decision, nodded to himself, quickly cleaned up the evidence of what he'd done, put the battery back into the smoke alarm, turned off the kitchen light, then went back to the desk. _If I stay awake, I'll keep thinking about it. But I can fix that problem, now._ "_This is all just too creepy, in a minute I want to be sleepy_," he said, felt the familiar feeling of the spell working.

_That should take care of me not being able to sleep. As for the rest_... Justin concentrated on when he'd woken up and what he'd done since, then took his hand and held it to his face. _The Council can't find out from me that I've done this if _I_ don't even know it. So…._

"_Cerebellum erasus_," he murmured, and then looked around the room, frowning. _What the... what am I doing up? _He smelled something from the kitchen. _I must have been hungry, and... whoa. _A wave of tiredness hit him, and he blinked and yawned, feeling like he could fall asleep right there at the desk. Getting up, Justin half-stumbled to the bedroom door, then realized he'd left the desk lamp on.

_Man, I'm tired. There was something I was thinking about. Something important. What was it?_ He concentrated for a few moments, found himself yawning again, then rubbing at his drooping eyes. _Well, it was a really long day, and a lot happened. If it's important, it'll come to me later._

Justin went back, turned off the lamp, then slipped into the bedroom, climbed into bed and moved against Alex. She stirred a little, and he gave her a kiss on the cheek, settled against her, and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

Author's Note:

Well, that's it for _Fun and Games_. I hope you've enjoyed the ride! The next story in this series will be _Normal Life_, starting in a few days.


End file.
